Miles of Dirty Trails

I like my bike.

It was a beautiful night for a ride last night. I didn’t have hot wind blowing on my face, I didn’t have bugs swarming me. It was pretty darn good.

I am still working out the bugs with the new cyclocross bike, though. Halfway to our turnaround, I heard a weird noise coming from the front end of my bike. I couldn’t figure out what it was and I assumed it was brake-related. When we got to the Princeton trailhead, I hopped off the bike and investigated a bit. Apparently, one of the brake cable guides broke and the cable was not long and rubbing against my tire… which was creating the weird whirring noise. Sigh. It’s always something.

I did have a chance to put the new wheel lights on – but only the back wheel was lighting up. I will have to tweak the bulbs a bit. The Iron Butterfly Light Show is of utmost importance while I ride. (Maybe it will scare away the badgers??)

This weekend, I hope to do a bit of work on the bike. I have some neon pink bar wrap to put on (which I have never done before… so… You Tube…) and I need to do some maintenance. When you always ride trail and gravel, your chain gets dirty! I also want to tweak my brakes and fit a bit. I have a different stem I would like to try to raise my handlebars a bit. I feel like I want more weight in my seat and less in my arms.

I also learned that the local grass cyclocross course only allows single-speed bikes. Sigh. The only bikes I have without gears is a vintage Huffy with a coaster brake. While I would look like a total badass rebel riding that, I don’t think I would learn much and improve my riding skills. So I need to think about a bike that will work for that application. I am resisting the n+1. Hard.